Chapter Five
As they rode in the truck, where to they did not know, Ardeth was surprised that the children had not cried or made a fuss at being captured by the Germans. He asked Rudi about it.
"They are so used to it" the man whispered "Half of them have been beaten, tortured and starved, being caught again is just part of life to them"
"Shut up" shouted the German at the end of the truck "Or you will be shot"
They stayed quiet for a while and then Alex asked if they knew where they were being taken. Before either man could answer the German had hit him with the rifle butt and cocked the rifle ready to shoot him when Rudi stopped him.
"He is scared, please, don't shoot him. He will be quiet, I will see to it"
The German put the rifle down and told them that next time he would shoot first. Ardeth wanted to see if Alex was alright but he didn't dare move. After a few minutes, the young man started to wake up and leaning against the side of the truck, held his head where the German had hit him. He went to say something but the girl next to him, raised her hand and placed it on his lips and shook her head.
Understanding what she meant he kept quiet and looked at Ardeth on the other side of the truck. He made a face that asked if he was okay and Alex nodded. All they could do was settle down and see where they were being taken.
Back at the woods, Father Shandor and Samuel had come out of their hiding place with five of the children that had managed to get away with them. They were cold and covered in snow from staying in one place for so long.
"I suggest we go back to the church and get the nuns to help us. The Germans won't be back there now and certainly won't think that we have gone back there" said Samuel.
"We have to find Ardeth and the others, we can't just leave them to the Germans" replied Father Shandor.
"We won't be, but there is nothing we can do at the moment, we know where they are being taken and there is no way we can get to them on that transport. The truck will take them to the station, probably in Vienna, that is the nearest place for transports to Auschwitz. Damn, the problem is once they are there, it will be impossible to get them out. We all know what they do there"
Father Shandor gathered his stuff and told the children to stay with Samuel, he had to make his way to Auschwitz somehow and find them. He could never live with himself if anything happened to them, especially Ardeth who should never have come back to Germany, he knew that now.
"Father you must stay with us, be sensible, we will get the help of other resistance people and they can find out better than we can. Come on"
The man knew Samuel was right, but he was feeling guilty and responsible for the safety of the men and children. He would go with Samuel for now and see what they could do from there.
The truck arrived at the station and the men and children were ordered off and shoved into a room with a load of other people. All of them looked starved and scared. They looked at the new arrivals and then carried on with what they were doing, which was sitting there, huddled together, waiting for the Germans to come back.
"Alex, you alright, I couldn't help you on the truck" said Ardeth looking at the mans head.
"Yeah, I'll be fine, just hurts a bit. Where are we and what is going to happen to us?" he asked.
"I don't know" replied his friend "But wherever it is, it is not going to be pleasant"
He sat down and Rudi sat beside him while Alex gathered the children together and got them to sit with some of the other people in the room including some women who had taken them to heart. Some of which had obviously lost their own children somewhere along the line.
"I don't think we are going anywhere that carry out experiments Ardeth, I know that is what is worrying you" said Rudi.
"Oh I am not worried for myself, but for Alex and the children. I am a warrior, I used to hardships and lack of food but he isn't and I have to make sure he gets back to his parents even if I don't"
It was cold in the room but not as cold as outside where they had to queue up for a sloppy soup and mouldy bread to eat later that day. It was disgusting and Alex was shocked at the way the other people devoured it as though it was the only thing they would get to eat.
"Why are they eating it, it is all mouldy and makes me feel sick" he said.
"You had better get used to it" said Rudi "It is all you will get for a long time. They are eating it because it is what they have been used to for many weeks even months"
"I had no idea it was this bad" the man replied "What the hell are we going to do?"
Nobody answered him as they didn't know but had a very good idea but didn't want to scare him any more than was necessary. He was still hungry and hadn't eaten any of the soup and it was soon taken by someone else would didn't care what it tasted like.
They fell asleep eventually but it wasn't a settled sleep, they either woke up themselves because of hunger or because someone else woke up and that disturbed them. This went on for about three days and then they were all ushered out of the room and made to line up next to a long cattle train.
Where the people had come from they didn't know but there seemed to be hundreds of them, men, women and children. Old and young, well and sick, all of them waiting beside the open trucks. The Germans were shouting at them to keep together and when there was no more to line up, they were ordered onto the trucks.
Ardeth and the others made sure that they stayed together but some of the children were taken with the women, who it was assumed were their mothers and put into a different truck. There was nothing they could do and hoped that they would find some comfort together.
They were pushed to the back of the truck and about a hundred people were put in after them. There was no way that they could sit down and had to stand, with people wedged against them until the doors were closed and then they had a little bit of space but only enough to turn round if they were lucky.
The train was made up of about sixty covered wagons and the hundreds of people were crammed inside each wagon. The doors were bolted and the only air was through gaps that had a grating of barbed wire. Several SS men lay on the roof, just in case anyone tried to escape.
"They believe in getting as many people in these things" said Ardeth.
The train moved off and started its journey, their destination, they didn't know but it was going to be a long one. After a few hours, although it was cold outside, inside the wagons, it was very hot and getting hotter, from people body heat. Some of the people had fainted and had been trampled under the others as there was no way to get them up again. Alex looked at Rudi, he was standing shoulder to shoulder with him and he was pale and sweating.
"Rudi, you alright?" he asked.
But before the man could answer, he started to slide down the wall of the truck, as he passed out in the heat. Luckily Ardeth managed to grasp his waist with his arm and between him and Alex held him up. If he went to the floor, he would die.
"Rudi, wake up, come on" said Alex slapping his face "You have to wake up"
His eyes opened and he tried to stay awake but it was too hot in there and he felt himself slipping into unconsciousness again. This time Alex had managed to get the other side of him and between the two men, held him and sort of wedged him against the wall of the truck to stop him from falling to the floor.
Just where Alex was standing was a gap in the window and he could see snow on the little ledge. Telling Ardeth to hold Rudi, he managed to slip his hand through the small gap and grasp a handful of the snow. Bringing it back in without cutting himself on the barbed wire, he rubbed into the mans face and this worked quite well. He woke up after the second handful of snow and with their help, managed to stay awake for the rest of the journey.
As the train went through the countryside, they could see through the gaps and watch villages, churches and fields pass by as they journeyed on.
Then they heard the whistle blow and the train started to slow down, they must be almost at their destination. It was late afternoon and they could see great big spotlights, shining through the dusk.
"Looks like we are here, wherever here is" said Alex.
"Yes, we have to try and stay together" replied Ardeth "That way we could survive longer"
Alex looked at him and saw fear in his eyes, he must have had the same fear in his own because Ardeth squeezed his arm as if to say, try not to worry.
"Let's hope that Father Shandor got away and has found out where we are" said Alex.
"If we are where I think we are, there is no chance of anyone rescuing us, we will have to rely on our own instincts and pray that we get it right" said Rudi.
They heard a lot of shouting and suddenly the doors opened, Germans stood there with rifles and some with dogs. The people in the wagon were so close to the doors that as they opened they fell out.
"EVERYBODY OUT" shouted the German soldier "NOW, MOVE"
The people crowded out onto the platform, or what acted as a platform, Ardeth and his friends stuck close together as they left the wagon. They were stiff from standing for so long and very hungry and thirsty. Some of the people in the wagon were dead and they had to step over them.
They soldiers pointed their rifles and motioned them to march towards the big gates of the camp. As they got near to it, there was a man standing there looking at each of the prisoners and either pointed to the right or the left. He looked at the three men and pointed to the right and they went through the gate which said over it "Albeit Macht Frei" which meant work means freedom.
Walking up the little pathway that led between wooden huts, they were taken to a hut at the end of the row and told to strip. There were about forty men in the hut and when they were all naked, the German officer came to look at them. When he saw the tattoos on Ardeth and the couple on Alex, he pulled them out of the line. He did the same to three others further down and they were told to shower first and put on the prison uniforms.
Rudi was left in the line and looked at the others as they went into the shower room. He wondered if that was real or a gas chamber, but he could see in when they opened the door and it was too small. When they had finished the other men were pushed through, in groups of six.
Ardeth and the other four men were given the clothes to put on and given a special cap that made it known that they were special prisoners.
"You will be taken to the commandant in due course. He will have special duties for you until it is decided whether you live or die with the others" said the officer.
He summoned the guard and told him to take them to a cell on their own at the end of the camp, near what they called Canada. They were given watery soup, very much like what they had before and water. The cell was only for two people and now there were five in there, which didn't leave much room.
They also learnt quickly not to speak until they were on their own. They had seen what happened to those who did. Ardeth and the others knew that they could be in this cell for a while before they were seen.
The walls were smooth and frozen, covered in frost where they had to sleep. It was dark now and they knew that they wouldn't be seen till the next day. A terrible cold seemed to go right into the bone and it kept them awake. During the night, the man who was leaning against him shifted his weight and slid down the wall. There was nothing they could do to help him there was no room. Reaching down, Ardeth touched his face and realized that he was dead.
"We have found five men with tattoos Sir, one has a lot of them, looks like they are tribal from some African country. Do you wish to see them?" asked the officer.
"No, not at the moment, I will see them in the morning. I have some paperwork to attend to. Have they been given the priority uniforms?" asked the commandant.
"Yes Sir"
"Very well, send them to me at 7am. I will have them registered and given a number and then they can go to work. Make sure the hut nearest Canada is ready for them. They can join the others already there"
The officer left and went to get his dinner. Then he would have to supervise the gassing of the other prisoners that didn't pass for work. It would be an all-night task again as there was supposed to be another transport the next morning.
Auschwitz-Birkenhau was one of the biggest death camps in Poland and they had four crematoria to accommodate all the Jews that were going to be killed. There were 11,111,1V and V at Birkenhau, 11 and 111 had rooms and gas chambers underground, they could gas 3000 at the same time.
1V and V were different – they were on one level and had three gas chambers that could gas 2000 at the same time. Elevators hoisted the bodies to the crematoria where the men moved them to the ovens, 11 and 111 had 15 ovens and 1V and V had 8.
On the walls of the undressing rooms were hooks with numbers and benches. Posters on the walls stated 'It's good to be clean' 'Lice can kill' 'To the disinfection area' all were a ploy to get the people in there calmly, because on the left were the massive doors that led to the gas chambers.
Zyclon-B was used, through the roof of 11 and 111, and the windows of 1V and V. The people thought they were going for a shower and were dead in fifteen minutes.
As the gas rose, the people were crushed as they struggled when the lights were turned out and they all got crushed. When the doors were opened, there were many injuries and a lot of blood where skulls and bones were crushed and broken.
Out of the train load of prisoners that Ardeth and the others had traveled with, at least 80% were now dead. How long it would be before the three friends were dead too, no-one knew, this would be entirely up to the commandant when he saw them the next day.
As they rode in the truck, where to they did not know, Ardeth was surprised that the children had not cried or made a fuss at being captured by the Germans. He asked Rudi about it.
"They are so used to it" the man whispered "Half of them have been beaten, tortured and starved, being caught again is just part of life to them"
"Shut up" shouted the German at the end of the truck "Or you will be shot"
They stayed quiet for a while and then Alex asked if they knew where they were being taken. Before either man could answer the German had hit him with the rifle butt and cocked the rifle ready to shoot him when Rudi stopped him.
"He is scared, please, don't shoot him. He will be quiet, I will see to it"
The German put the rifle down and told them that next time he would shoot first. Ardeth wanted to see if Alex was alright but he didn't dare move. After a few minutes, the young man started to wake up and leaning against the side of the truck, held his head where the German had hit him. He went to say something but the girl next to him, raised her hand and placed it on his lips and shook her head.
Understanding what she meant he kept quiet and looked at Ardeth on the other side of the truck. He made a face that asked if he was okay and Alex nodded. All they could do was settle down and see where they were being taken.
Back at the woods, Father Shandor and Samuel had come out of their hiding place with five of the children that had managed to get away with them. They were cold and covered in snow from staying in one place for so long.
"I suggest we go back to the church and get the nuns to help us. The Germans won't be back there now and certainly won't think that we have gone back there" said Samuel.
"We have to find Ardeth and the others, we can't just leave them to the Germans" replied Father Shandor.
"We won't be, but there is nothing we can do at the moment, we know where they are being taken and there is no way we can get to them on that transport. The truck will take them to the station, probably in Vienna, that is the nearest place for transports to Auschwitz. Damn, the problem is once they are there, it will be impossible to get them out. We all know what they do there"
Father Shandor gathered his stuff and told the children to stay with Samuel, he had to make his way to Auschwitz somehow and find them. He could never live with himself if anything happened to them, especially Ardeth who should never have come back to Germany, he knew that now.
"Father you must stay with us, be sensible, we will get the help of other resistance people and they can find out better than we can. Come on"
The man knew Samuel was right, but he was feeling guilty and responsible for the safety of the men and children. He would go with Samuel for now and see what they could do from there.
The truck arrived at the station and the men and children were ordered off and shoved into a room with a load of other people. All of them looked starved and scared. They looked at the new arrivals and then carried on with what they were doing, which was sitting there, huddled together, waiting for the Germans to come back.
"Alex, you alright, I couldn't help you on the truck" said Ardeth looking at the mans head.
"Yeah, I'll be fine, just hurts a bit. Where are we and what is going to happen to us?" he asked.
"I don't know" replied his friend "But wherever it is, it is not going to be pleasant"
He sat down and Rudi sat beside him while Alex gathered the children together and got them to sit with some of the other people in the room including some women who had taken them to heart. Some of which had obviously lost their own children somewhere along the line.
"I don't think we are going anywhere that carry out experiments Ardeth, I know that is what is worrying you" said Rudi.
"Oh I am not worried for myself, but for Alex and the children. I am a warrior, I used to hardships and lack of food but he isn't and I have to make sure he gets back to his parents even if I don't"
It was cold in the room but not as cold as outside where they had to queue up for a sloppy soup and mouldy bread to eat later that day. It was disgusting and Alex was shocked at the way the other people devoured it as though it was the only thing they would get to eat.
"Why are they eating it, it is all mouldy and makes me feel sick" he said.
"You had better get used to it" said Rudi "It is all you will get for a long time. They are eating it because it is what they have been used to for many weeks even months"
"I had no idea it was this bad" the man replied "What the hell are we going to do?"
Nobody answered him as they didn't know but had a very good idea but didn't want to scare him any more than was necessary. He was still hungry and hadn't eaten any of the soup and it was soon taken by someone else would didn't care what it tasted like.
They fell asleep eventually but it wasn't a settled sleep, they either woke up themselves because of hunger or because someone else woke up and that disturbed them. This went on for about three days and then they were all ushered out of the room and made to line up next to a long cattle train.
Where the people had come from they didn't know but there seemed to be hundreds of them, men, women and children. Old and young, well and sick, all of them waiting beside the open trucks. The Germans were shouting at them to keep together and when there was no more to line up, they were ordered onto the trucks.
Ardeth and the others made sure that they stayed together but some of the children were taken with the women, who it was assumed were their mothers and put into a different truck. There was nothing they could do and hoped that they would find some comfort together.
They were pushed to the back of the truck and about a hundred people were put in after them. There was no way that they could sit down and had to stand, with people wedged against them until the doors were closed and then they had a little bit of space but only enough to turn round if they were lucky.
The train was made up of about sixty covered wagons and the hundreds of people were crammed inside each wagon. The doors were bolted and the only air was through gaps that had a grating of barbed wire. Several SS men lay on the roof, just in case anyone tried to escape.
"They believe in getting as many people in these things" said Ardeth.
The train moved off and started its journey, their destination, they didn't know but it was going to be a long one. After a few hours, although it was cold outside, inside the wagons, it was very hot and getting hotter, from people body heat. Some of the people had fainted and had been trampled under the others as there was no way to get them up again. Alex looked at Rudi, he was standing shoulder to shoulder with him and he was pale and sweating.
"Rudi, you alright?" he asked.
But before the man could answer, he started to slide down the wall of the truck, as he passed out in the heat. Luckily Ardeth managed to grasp his waist with his arm and between him and Alex held him up. If he went to the floor, he would die.
"Rudi, wake up, come on" said Alex slapping his face "You have to wake up"
His eyes opened and he tried to stay awake but it was too hot in there and he felt himself slipping into unconsciousness again. This time Alex had managed to get the other side of him and between the two men, held him and sort of wedged him against the wall of the truck to stop him from falling to the floor.
Just where Alex was standing was a gap in the window and he could see snow on the little ledge. Telling Ardeth to hold Rudi, he managed to slip his hand through the small gap and grasp a handful of the snow. Bringing it back in without cutting himself on the barbed wire, he rubbed into the mans face and this worked quite well. He woke up after the second handful of snow and with their help, managed to stay awake for the rest of the journey.
As the train went through the countryside, they could see through the gaps and watch villages, churches and fields pass by as they journeyed on.
Then they heard the whistle blow and the train started to slow down, they must be almost at their destination. It was late afternoon and they could see great big spotlights, shining through the dusk.
"Looks like we are here, wherever here is" said Alex.
"Yes, we have to try and stay together" replied Ardeth "That way we could survive longer"
Alex looked at him and saw fear in his eyes, he must have had the same fear in his own because Ardeth squeezed his arm as if to say, try not to worry.
"Let's hope that Father Shandor got away and has found out where we are" said Alex.
"If we are where I think we are, there is no chance of anyone rescuing us, we will have to rely on our own instincts and pray that we get it right" said Rudi.
They heard a lot of shouting and suddenly the doors opened, Germans stood there with rifles and some with dogs. The people in the wagon were so close to the doors that as they opened they fell out.
"EVERYBODY OUT" shouted the German soldier "NOW, MOVE"
The people crowded out onto the platform, or what acted as a platform, Ardeth and his friends stuck close together as they left the wagon. They were stiff from standing for so long and very hungry and thirsty. Some of the people in the wagon were dead and they had to step over them.
They soldiers pointed their rifles and motioned them to march towards the big gates of the camp. As they got near to it, there was a man standing there looking at each of the prisoners and either pointed to the right or the left. He looked at the three men and pointed to the right and they went through the gate which said over it "Albeit Macht Frei" which meant work means freedom.
Walking up the little pathway that led between wooden huts, they were taken to a hut at the end of the row and told to strip. There were about forty men in the hut and when they were all naked, the German officer came to look at them. When he saw the tattoos on Ardeth and the couple on Alex, he pulled them out of the line. He did the same to three others further down and they were told to shower first and put on the prison uniforms.
Rudi was left in the line and looked at the others as they went into the shower room. He wondered if that was real or a gas chamber, but he could see in when they opened the door and it was too small. When they had finished the other men were pushed through, in groups of six.
Ardeth and the other four men were given the clothes to put on and given a special cap that made it known that they were special prisoners.
"You will be taken to the commandant in due course. He will have special duties for you until it is decided whether you live or die with the others" said the officer.
He summoned the guard and told him to take them to a cell on their own at the end of the camp, near what they called Canada. They were given watery soup, very much like what they had before and water. The cell was only for two people and now there were five in there, which didn't leave much room.
They also learnt quickly not to speak until they were on their own. They had seen what happened to those who did. Ardeth and the others knew that they could be in this cell for a while before they were seen.
The walls were smooth and frozen, covered in frost where they had to sleep. It was dark now and they knew that they wouldn't be seen till the next day. A terrible cold seemed to go right into the bone and it kept them awake. During the night, the man who was leaning against him shifted his weight and slid down the wall. There was nothing they could do to help him there was no room. Reaching down, Ardeth touched his face and realized that he was dead.
"We have found five men with tattoos Sir, one has a lot of them, looks like they are tribal from some African country. Do you wish to see them?" asked the officer.
"No, not at the moment, I will see them in the morning. I have some paperwork to attend to. Have they been given the priority uniforms?" asked the commandant.
"Yes Sir"
"Very well, send them to me at 7am. I will have them registered and given a number and then they can go to work. Make sure the hut nearest Canada is ready for them. They can join the others already there"
The officer left and went to get his dinner. Then he would have to supervise the gassing of the other prisoners that didn't pass for work. It would be an all-night task again as there was supposed to be another transport the next morning.
Auschwitz-Birkenhau was one of the biggest death camps in Poland and they had four crematoria to accommodate all the Jews that were going to be killed. There were 11,111,1V and V at Birkenhau, 11 and 111 had rooms and gas chambers underground, they could gas 3000 at the same time.
1V and V were different – they were on one level and had three gas chambers that could gas 2000 at the same time. Elevators hoisted the bodies to the crematoria where the men moved them to the ovens, 11 and 111 had 15 ovens and 1V and V had 8.
On the walls of the undressing rooms were hooks with numbers and benches. Posters on the walls stated 'It's good to be clean' 'Lice can kill' 'To the disinfection area' all were a ploy to get the people in there calmly, because on the left were the massive doors that led to the gas chambers.
Zyclon-B was used, through the roof of 11 and 111, and the windows of 1V and V. The people thought they were going for a shower and were dead in fifteen minutes.
As the gas rose, the people were crushed as they struggled when the lights were turned out and they all got crushed. When the doors were opened, there were many injuries and a lot of blood where skulls and bones were crushed and broken.
Out of the train load of prisoners that Ardeth and the others had traveled with, at least 80% were now dead. How long it would be before the three friends were dead too, no-one knew, this would be entirely up to the commandant when he saw them the next day.
